Some Touch Of Madness
by Corvus corone
Summary: What would appear to be a simple shopping trip in Central Town goes badly wrong ... WARNING: Bizarre, strange and the opposite of your typical Gakuen Alice fanfic.


_A/N: This is for **Abnormality Words** (Henseishi). I absolutely LOVED doing this challenge - I completed it in three days, can you believe that? I would normally take about two weeks. I hope it's the kind of thing you were looking for - if not, I'm really sorry ... _

_You, dear reader, will find this fic either **a)** utterly freaky and OOCed, **b)** hilarious BECAUSE of the utter freakiness or **c)** completely impossible to understand. Hopefully it's either a) or b). Not everyone will find this funny, I suppose._

_If you want to know what the challenge was (I tell you now - it's crack, freaky, weird, utterly WTF and just the sort of thing I like to write. It's even stranger than my two previous challenges - which were Sumire/Mikan and Persona/Luca's mom), read the whole ficlet and then the second A/N at the end of it. :D_

_XXX_

**Some Touch Of Madness**

Technically, students weren't actually allowed to go to Central Town during school hours, and one o'clock on a Tuesday counted as a school hour. But when you have the express permission of a teacher (well, at least his lack of an objection), it was probably a different story.

"Persona-chan ... shall we get off here?" said the girl, her voice coated with a little too much sugary sweetness. The masked man next to her nodded and stopped the stolen minibus. The two disembarked hand in hand, the girl leading the way.

The two walked for some distance before the man pointed a black gloved hand at a nearby store. The girl stopped, looked round, and said, "Oh, would you like to go in, dear?" Her voice was still in the same unnaturally saccharine tone - a passer-by stared at the odd couple as they entered the shop, but they ignored him.

Inside "Genuine Alice-Powered Candles", the shopkeeper was disturbed from her candle-craft by the sound of the tinkling welcome bell. She wiped the wax off her hands, hoisted up her skirts and ran out to meet the customers.

"Good day! Are you looking for something in particular?" she said, beaming at the visitors. A strange pair, she thought to herself. The girl wore the uniform of an Academy student, and the man was dressed all in black with a strange mask covering his eyes. At least, she _thought_ it was a man - he wore black lipstick on his lips and many earrings dangled from his earlobes. _I hope he's not going to cause any trouble; he looks like the suspicious type._

"Oh, we're just here to look around," said the violet-eyed girl without smiling. She turned elegantly and started to examine the various shelves. What an unusual eye colour, thought the shopkeeper - but typical of an Alice, I suppose.

There was something odd about that voice, something which reminded the shopkeeper of psychopathic maniacs who got locked up for twenty-six life sentences. Huh, must have been her imagination running wild again. "Well, if you need any help with my products, do feel free to ask," she said out loud. She didn't like the look of these people - the sooner they were gone, the better.

She watched as the couple perused the shelves, the uncomfortable silence sometimes broken by the dark-haired girl asking the man various questions or commenting on the candles ("How about red?" or "But you know I love fires, dear ..." for example). Strange, the shopkeeper thought; she never heard the man reply. Why didn't he say anything?

After some time, the girl approached the main counter, still holding her mute companion by the hand. "Do you have any speciality candles? Unusual colours, large flames, the like?"

The woman behind the counter was slightly taken aback by the girl's appearance, now that she could see her face in close detail. Short dark hair, a paleness of the skin that went beyond unhealthy to unnatural, a strange purple colour of the eyes that held a slightly deranged glint, all in a face that seemed as if it could have been beautiful - but something terrible had happened to her, no doubt. Surely this girl couldn't be more than seventeen! The shopkeeper shuddered almost imperceptibly. The cheerful music that continuously played in "Genuine Alice-Powered Candles" could be heard indistinctly in the background.

"Well ... ?" The girl in question interrupted her thoughts.

"Ah! Uh, yes, we do - the special effects candles are all in this corner," she said quickly. She walked out from behind the counter and bustled around the said corner, showing off her "special effects" products. From the corner of her eye she saw the man's lips twist in a smirk, and the girl reach out to inspect the products.

"And how much is this?" the girl asked, holding out a carved wax phoenix. The label on it declared that it burned "with blue sparks for at least two weeks without going out".

"Ah ... that will be 2500 yen - it's a limited edition, and I don't make that many with special flames," replied the seller.

The girl nodded, a faint smile on her lips that made the shopkeeper instantly on the alert for danger, and replaced the candle. The woman watched her warily, and returned to her place behind the counter. She continued to watch as the couple picked out various Special Candles including the two most expensive varieties in her shop. They weren't planning on stealing those, were they? They did seem like the shady type, with all that black, the mask and the girl's rather vampirish looks. Hmm, well, she had a few thieving measures in her store, so that should take care of any ideas like _that_.

It was not until quite a while had passed when the girl brought her armfuls of candles to the counter. The strange man hung around behind her, his eyes glinting a little from behind the eyeholes of the mask. "We'd like these, please," she said pleasantly.

"Sure," the woman said, nodding, and started scanning the items into the barcode reader. She tried to ignore the unwavering and slightly disturbing stare that the girl was giving her. A few carved ornamental candles (including the phoenix that she had priced for them earlier), some scented relaxation types and many smaller candles designed to give great heat and light at minimal wax expense. Putting the items into a paper bag, she looked up at the girl and said, "Twenty-two thousand five hundred yen, please."

The man smiled, a smile that was made even more menacing that it already was by the fact that his eyes were hidden. The girl didn't smile or appear to react, but simply said, "Oh, do we have to _pay_?"

The woman looked at her, disconcerted. She could hear amusement in the girl's voice, the same amusement as was in the man's smile. "Well, yes, this _is_ a shop you know."

"Oh ... but I don't like paying, and neither does Persona-chan."

"But you have to. I don't run this store for nothing," she said defensively. Her hand reached under the desktop and searched for the Alarm button in case the need arose.

"Hnn, that's troublesome. It would be so much easier if you just let us take our shopping instead of trying to stop us." The man came forward at those words and joined the girl in staring down the shopkeeper.

"You shouldn't try and steal from Central Town stores," said the woman staunchly.

"Oh, why? What would you do if we left ... say, now?" The girl took the man by the hand and started on her way out the door. The shopkeeper immediately pressed the red button on reflex.

Nothing happened.

The woman gaped, somewhat stunned by the lack of effect. The girl smiled a barely noticeable smile - the same as the one on her face when she saw the expensive phoenix candles - and said, "Just as I expected - but not what you expected, isn't that right?"

The woman nodded weakly. What was she supposed to do now? Scream for help?

"I wouldn't recommend screaming or calling for attention either. You don't want to know what else we can do."

"H-how did ... ?"

"People are so easy to read ... oh, and if you were wondering about your disabled alarm system, why don't you take a guess at whose burglar alarm design these newly built shops use?"

"... the, the Imai system ... ?" She'd read the name on security packages everywhere.

"And doesn't that explain everything. You'd expect an inventor to know her own designs - and be able to negate them." The man put his arm across her shoulders possessively - the girl leaned into it almost unconsciously.

Surely, surely not? It was too much. There was a pause, and then the woman spoke with more anger than fear, "Who _are_ you people, anyway? Do you just shoplift whatever you feel like, my candles and anything else you want today?"

"Oh, oh, don't get angry," said the girl, the one who claimed to be Imai. "You wouldn't want to get Persona here annoyed with you; he could kill you with just one touch of his little finger - and do I hear a double entendre there, I wonder?"

The man smirked and looked down at the girl in his arms. Taking one of his gloves off, he reached over and stroked the cactus on the countertop. The couple watched as it withered and shrank into a dark pulp.

Persona ... the girl had already said his name a few times since entering the shop, and now it struck a chord in the woman's mind. Persona ... the caged boy, the mysterious death demon living in the Hanahime den? And on top of that ... those rumours about the sudden madness a few months ago of the genius child inventor Hotaru Imai sprang to mind.

Her words again interrupted the woman's thoughts. "But as you were saying. You know who we are, so I don't need to spend time explaining. As for the candles, well, I happen to rather like fires and my Fire Alice keeps refusing to give them to me. Of course, that would be easily solved by a little torture - which would be quite fun for me too - but that particular boy is too useful to my dear Persona-chan. Now, the candles please, and then we shall depart. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Y-yes," said the woman, scared again by the thought of the monster's death curse on her. But she had an Alice too. Summoning up her courage, she concentrated on the hot wax still in the workroom, wax that was moldable and would conform to her will, and would burn these two once it flew out into this room. She did not notice the girl reach into her shirt pocket.

Nothing happened.

The woman looked dumbly at the girl, who was now holding a funnel-shaped instrument in her hand.

"You know, I once had a best friend who knew how to steal things as well. But she didn't steal candles and fires, though. And she's not my friend any longer ... I scared her away," the girl said, leering nastily at that last phrase. "I once had a brother and a boyfriend too - can you believe that? They all left me in the end ... Of course, it was all her fault to begin with, but I don't want to get into _that_ business again - and now I have my darling Persona with me, and he won't leave me. He _can't_ leave me. Death is a nasty thing, wouldn't you agree ... but it meant I could harness her power completely and without limit." She held up the odd thing in her hand, and opened a hidden compartment. "And look what she stole for me this time!"

The seller could only stare at the Alice Stone in the girl's emaciated hand. _The colour was hers ..._

The girl laughed coldly - not a real laugh at all, obviously faked and practised - and closed her hand. The man, who was now sitting down on a sofa in the store, stared at her in rapture. "I'll let you have this back in exchange for my shopping," she said. "And I'm sorry about the state of my hands, there really is so little left of me. I can't help doing it."

But the woman she was talking to was in a state of shock. "You can't ... you couldn't have, how could you take it like that?"

"Oh, cheer up. Can't you hear the happy music? They told me that so many, _many_ times after it happened ... 'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands'," she said in a singsong voice, following the faint music in the adjacent room.

When the shopkeeper's hands stayed still, the girl called the man over and smirked again. "Persona ... this one looks like she might need some _persuasion_. Death is so powerful; it made me into what I am - what about you, dear?" she said, her last words directed at the shopkeeper.

The girl clapped her pale hands together, and motioned for the woman to do the same.

The blank mask stared at her.

She clapped.

END.

_XXX_

_A/N: The challenge was:_

_**- Persona x Hotaru  
- Persona is mute  
- Hotaru has major psych issues  
- No Natsume  
- No Mikan  
- The line, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."**_

_I'm really, really sorry ... I mentioned both Natsume and Mikan! I just realised! But their names weren't said aloud, and Hotaru DOES want to torture Natsume and it's implied that Mikan is probably dead ... so is that better? Also the fact that it's rather short is annoying me too, but I couldn't think of much more to write for this challenge and scene._

_Argh ... I hope this is OK for you._


End file.
